The invention is concerned with a method of assembling an electric motor having a stator and a rotor as well as with an associated assembly tool.
The main component parts of electric motors are the rotor, which is usually seated on the motor shaft rotatably mounted in a housing, and the stator, which is fixed in a suitable way in the housing. In order not to hinder the rotational movement of the rotor, an air gap is necessary between the rotor and the stator. The smaller this air gap, the better the efficiency of the motor. However, the air gap cannot be made just as small as you like, since component tolerances and assembly tolerances have to be considered and therefore the air gap has to be chosen to be adequately large with sufficient certainty. In the assembly customary up to now, in which the parts are simply put together, it may happen that the component tolerances and the assembly tolerances add together and therefore relatively great positional tolerances of the parts in relation to one another occur overall, making a particularly wide air gap necessary.
It is the object of the invention to provide an assembly method for electric motors which makes possible a more accurate alignment of the stator with respect to the rotor and therefore allows the air gap to be made smaller.
The object is achieved according to the invention by a method in which, before during or after the insertion into one another of the rotor and the stator, a centering aid is introduced into the air gap between the rotor and the stator at at least three points distributed over the circumference, the rotor and the stator are subsequently fixed in their predetermined position in relation to one another in the envisaged way and finally the centering aid is pulled out through openings provided in the housing of the electric motor.
By assembling the centering aid at the same time as the electric motor is put together, an exact width of the air gap is ensured over the entire circumference, so that assembly tolerances, which were previously able to bring about a slightly eccentric position of the stator with respect to the rotor, are avoidable. It is also possible to a certain extent to provide compensation for tolerances of the components themselves. The new assembly method makes it possible to reduce the nominal size of the air gap, since only relatively small margins of certainty have to be taken into account when choosing the gap width, on account of the reduced tolerances. In addition to the possibility of reducing the width of the air gap and consequently improving the efficiency of the motor, the virtually constant gap width over the entire circumference is also of advantage for the properties of the motor.
For positional fixing, the stator is preferably braced between two housing halves, in which the motor shaft is mounted with the rotor seated on it. After the bracing of the housing halves, the stator can no longer change its position with respect to the rotor and the assembly aid can be removed. Since a dislodgement of the stator can no longer occur even before the centering aid is removed, it is possible to dispense with guiding surfaces for the stator in the housing halves that under certain circumstances were previously essential.
To achieve particularly accurate centering of the cylindrical inner surface of the stator with respect to the cylindrical outer surface of the rotor, it is advantageous to produce a force acting radially between the rotor and the stator at at least three points distributed around the circumference of the air gap when introducing the centering aid. As long as the rotor and the stator are not yet fixed in their position in relation to one another, these radial forces provide an exact concentric alignment of the stator in relation to the rotor. The radial forces between the rotor and the stator may be produced, for example, by flexible elements, belonging to the centering aid, between the rotor and the stator or by pushing spline elements, belonging to the centering aid, in between the rotor and the stator.
The invention also relates to an assembly tool for carrying out one of the methods described above. According to the invention, such a tool has, as a centering aid, at least three centering lugs, which are arranged in such a way that they can be introduced at least partially into the air gap of an electric motor to be assembled. For achieving a uniform gap width, at least three centering lugs are required, although of course it is possible for more centering lugs to be provided.
The exact alignment of the stator with respect to the rotor can be achieved by different designs of the centering lugs. A first possibility is to choose the thickness of the lugs such that the lugs are seated between the stator and the rotor essentially without any backlash. With such centering lugs, it is already possible to achieve considerable improvements in the accuracy of assembly.
Still better centering is achieved by means of lugs which are capable of building up in the air gap a radial force acting between the stator and the rotor. This can be achieved, for example, by the centering lugs being designed as radially resilient elements which can be pushed under stress between the rotor and the stator. Since the force acts at points distributed evenly over the circumference, the stator assumes a concentric position with its cylindrical inner surface with respect to the cylindrical outer surface of the rotor.
Instead of the resilient elements, the centering lugs may have at their free ends spline surfaces which allow the ends of the lugs to be clamped between the stator and the rotor. An exact alignment of the stator with respect to the rotor is also possible with the aid of such spline elements.